I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Gardening in New England – New Garden Stand Photos and a Garden Tally Update!

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosureBy Mavis Butterfield on September 25, 2018 · 52 Comments

There’s just something about seeing a scarecrow in the fall that just make you smile doesn’t it? Why neighborhoods and front yards are not filled with more of them, is sort of a mystery to me.

Plus, if you have a little vegetable stand at the end of your driveway and you can’t be there all the time {someone has to chop the wood and harvest the vegetables after all!} a scarecrow acts as the perfect farm stand greeter, don’t you think?

My carrot cake jam.… it’s a tough sell. I think people are afraid to try it! 🙁 The blueberry, and spiced peachsold out almost immediately, and the apple butter has been a steady seller. But the carrot cake jam, {which happens to me MY FAVORITE JAM} I think I’ve only sold 2 jars.

The peppers are moving… as well as the pumpkins and zucchini. Maybe in a few weeks {once those lazy chickens are all laying} I’ll be able to offer eggs. If all goes as planned, we should have a nice mix of cream, green, blue and brown eggs in our cartons. I’m thinking about charging $4 a dozen. $3 doesn’t seem like enough for colored eggs and $5 seems too high. What do you think? Does that seem like a fair price?

We had a few Amish cheese squash for sale but those got snagged on the first day we set out our larger pumpkins. We have a few more ripening in the corn patch but they’re not quite ready yet and I think I’m going to set them on the dining room table after we harvest them. Mini {Jack Be Little} pumpkins seem to go fast too, but we’re still waiting on another round of those as well.

Amish cheese. It’s a beauty!

My onions were small this year. How did yours fair?

Things left to harvest:

Peppers

Sweet potatoes

Regular potatoes and fingerlings

Winter squash

Beets

Swiss chard

Dried beans

Zucchini

Lettuce

Things left to plant:

Another round of radish and lettuce seeds

Cabbage and kale transplants

Garlic

Fall, it’s finally here. And I couldn’t be happier! With the temps finally cooling down, I am looking forward to spending entire DAYS outside again working in the garden. 🙂 😉

Are you growing a vegetable garden this year? If so, what are harvesting these days? Curious minds want to know!

Total spent growing 395 pounds 0 ounces of food this year $811.00 {about $2.05 a pound so far!} My goal every year is to get this down to $1.00 a pound or less by the end of the season. This year though, because of the move and some higher than normal start up costs, it’s a bit higher. What did I spend my garden money on this year you ask? Well, $399 on Mannyand the rest on seeds, compost, grow light bulbsand small garden tools/supplies.

Hi Mavis!! Love your (very scary) scarecrow!! I totally want one for my front stall… as well as making a front stall as great as yours!! So many goals this upcoming spring!!!
Re eggs. I sell mine for $4 doz to family and $5 everyone else. Buying free range eggs here from shops are a lot more ($8??)
I just washed up over 5 dozen and started selling them to our ‘regulars’ and sent some in to work with Husband!
I am quite fascinated by the thought of carrot cake jam!! When I get brave… (and some carrots lol) I’ll try it! (note to self)
We are still cleaning up our fallen tree – but I put in the potatoes (about 100) and cleaned up the asparagus! We need a new fence for the garden ASAP. Waging war with keeping chickens out of the veggie patch. I am losing.
The garlic and cabbage are doing their own thing happily.
I have replanted and cleaned up the raspberries and now in the process of sorting out the strawberries.
Over the next few days I am desperate to get more seeds on the go. But so far, the snow peas, cos lettuce, celery, rocket and capsicum have all popped up.
Everything has been so messy for so long – glad to have been looking at your garden instead!! 🙂

I had to scrap my garden because I ripped out all my beds and got 10 new ones! The person working on them is super slow so I’m just going to wait until spring. I took inspiration from your 500lb goal and am going to try it to. We have prolific apples and avacados which I’m hoping will make up a big chunk of the total. I have to get better at preserving food but I have a biggish family and lots of neighbors so we usually go through it. I am very proud that I grew a pumpkin for each of my children before my beds were taken out. Yippee! I’ll send pics of my new beds once they are done, I hope they are Mavis approved.

Suggestions.
Write a comment card next to the jam saying it’s your favorite and how you use it or some other comment about how popular it has been for the people that have tried it. People are scared to buy what they don’t know or take the risk they need encouragement.
Scarecrows should be for sale as well. Make it more fun like naming it and put a name tag and story with it.

I occasionally have leftover eggs, and sell them to my parents’ neighbors and some coworkers for $5/dozen. They’re all blue and green, and if you go to the local expensive health food store they’re $5 for a 6 pack of blue, so they think they are getting a deal. And I sell my quail eggs for $5 for a container of about 2.5 dozen. I just use the egg money to pay for the expensive kale habit my birds have, as they eat more fresh veggies than my garden produces. 🙂

The carrot cake jam would have been the one I would’ve snagged first! I’d probably have to hide it from my son, though, because he loves carrot cake. 😉

You’re seriously a gardening inspiration. It’s seriously one of my goals to grow a Mavis-like garden one day. My daughter is getting bigger and goes to full-time kindergarten next year, so maybe I can get a start on some of that… I’ve already pinned a website on ripping out that AWFUL juniper bush out front, it takes up so much space and is so ugly. I’d like an herb garden to go in that space, and I can rip out all the disgusting old half-dead cacti on the side of the house… I’m going to have to go write all of this down! Thanks, Mavis! 🙂

Your garden stand is wonderful, but the scarecrow is a little scary to me. I’d be more likely to stop if it she was smiling (but I’m a weenie). I second the comment about putting a little note with some info by the carrot cake jam so it makes people curious and then they will try it. Thanks for sharing your East coast adventure. I love reading it.

I love your honor system farm stand and I’ve wanted to do one of my own for a long time. We live in south Texas and those types of stands don’t seem very popular here. In fact, farm stands are far and few between and I’ve never seen one unattended. I told some friends and family about my idea and they all seem to think my vegetables are going to get stolen and my money box too :/ I like to believe there are good people in this world and that most people don’t have problems with an honor system stand. Can you share your experience with how well an honor system stand works?

In upstate New York, we started buying raw milk at a “farm stand.” It was actually their old garage, and it was un-attended for several years. Then they added a video system with notices on the wall, and a sign-in sheet to list what you bought, how much you paid, name and phone number. They added many other things to sell over the years, and eventually built an actual store with someone on duty when it’s open.

That said, there are many, many farm stands open this time of year with no one around.

I’d love to be able to buy raw milk locally; how lucky you are! I’m glad to hear a success story; sounds like a good plan with the sign in sheet. Would definitely help with the daily tally of what sells best too!

We collect the money at the end of each day and set out a jar with 4 one dollar bills in it each morning {in case someone needs change}. Our neighbors are super nice and we are totally not worried about someone stealing veggies or shorting us. I think you should give it a try and see if you like it.

At first glance, I thought her mouth was upside down and angry, but now I’m thinking that is her nose. I see pink cheeks and a big smile lower down that maybe the stuffing doesn’t push outwards?!? Anyhow, what a fantastic idea using your pilgrim costume! Too bad you don’t have an extra pair of your glasses for her!

I was going to suggest that as well, Mavis. If you have a restaurant supply house nearby, you can get small portion cups with lids and set those out with the jam in it each morning. I don’t know how much you have to sell though, so that may be more trouble than its worth.

That’s an impressive harvest for the first year!
The carrot cake jam looks tempting, although I probably would pass on anything home canned unless it was from a known cook or licensed kitchen. Maybe I’m too cautious. I’ve bookmarked the recipe though. 🙂

You did plant the Sweet Greek Red squash Mavis. I’ve lots of them slowly ripening on the vines here in upstate NY. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
I like your “scarecrow” and think she has to put many smiles on the faces of passersby. ‘
I bet you hit your 500lb goal.

They get $6-$7 a dozen for farm fresh eggs here in New Haven, CT. I only have 3 chickens at the moment so I bought some eggs at the farmer’s market this weekend. I also bought some duck eggs- $5 for 6 eggs- and hard to come by here.

Don’t wash your eggs! Then you have to refrigerate them! And so does the person who buys them! – although they will freak out about it so it probably doesn’t matter if you are selling them- they will refrigerate anyway. We are so backwards here in the USA!!!! 😉

RE: Carrot cake jam–I might rename it 🙂 I like carrot cake but can’t quite imagine it as jam. Maybe I’m not alone in that. And as someone else mentioned–I’m hesitant about someone else’s home canned goods. Maybe they have a cat on the counter…

I use your carrot cake jelly as a topping for my carrot cake cupcakes. I use an XL tip and create a hollow circle of cream cheese frosting and drop about 2 tsp of jelly in the middle. It takes a good cupcake and makes it out of this world. You could use it as a filling or topping on a carrot cake for the same effect b

I love making Carrot Cake Jam and people are hesitant to try it. Last year i brought in a jar to work (with strange looks on peoples faces), some graham crackers and some spreadable cream cheese. spread the cream cheese on the graham, top with a spoonful of jam… the jam lasted less than an hour. Maybe that is a recipe you can suggest with the jar?

Also, i no longer have a garden (damn groundhogs and deer) but onions were something i planted every year and i never got large onions- maybe golf ball size with one random larger one. i thought that maybe it was my soil but i’m really not sure. i had the same issue with radishes…radishes are the easiest thing to grow and mine were also so tiny.

On the Carrot Cake Jam….like some maybe rename it and also
if possible…give them a sample….taste somehow…as for the veg.
a very good price esp on the peppers…..and as for eggs…check the
stores at there pricing….and go a little lower….using those eggs..s
you can save the shells and cop in a blender..and put back into
the soil…helps soil and even chickens can use those shells…